We booked this cruise thru Princess on line last January in celebration of our 40th Wedding Anniversary. We have both always wanted to see the Panama Canal up close and chose to do the full transit from LA to FLL. We booked our own flights arriving the same morning as embarkment. Used Princess transfers both for embarkment and disembarkment they both went quite smooth and had no issues.

I have read many reviews and other things on these boards regarding upgrade fairy and such so this might be interesting to some. Our cruise was set for Thursday, September 18th and on Monday, September 15th I received an e-mail from Princess offering the following, which I could not or should say did not take advantage of. We had booked a BC balcony cabin on the Port side which I had picked out because of location. The offer was if I would postpone our trip until after December they would upgrade me to a mini suite and only charge for one passenger instead of two. They also offered $200 towards changing our air. This threw me into a tizzy because of the good deal that was being offered. Talked to my husband and we decided that we needed this vacation now and so declined. Just wanted to let everyone know that it does happen.

Embarkment was easy and quick. We arrived around 11:30 and we were on the ship by 11:45. They really have this down pat. The ship is beautiful and well laid out in our opinion. Found our cabin B528 balcony on the Port side of ship and went inside to check it out and get rid of our carry-on. Husband had ordered roses and they were waiting for me. Very nice flowers but only lasted 3 days. He went and ordered more flowers, the tropical ones. Mentioned that the roses only lasted a few days and they only charged him half for the tropical ones. I felt that was a nice gesture. They were beautiful and lasted the entire cruise. Read more